Is 8GB on a hybrid drive enough for gaming?

[Gerr]

I keep my OS on a SSD, but install Steam and all my games to an SSD cached WD Black drive using Intel RST.  Problem is it's never very stable with 1 in 10 boots showing an error in the RST app and I have to reboot.  This isn't isolated to this PC, has happened to me on multiple Haswell PC's making me believe Intel's SSD caching isn't bug free yet.  I am building a new Skylake gaming PC and saw the new Seagate FireCuda drives that are both 7200RPM and are hybrids, but only have 8GB of NAND.  Not sure if that's enough for a dedicated gaming drive, thoughts?  Seagate does have a Hybrid drive with 32GB of NAND, but it's only a 5400RPM 2.5" drive, so anything not cached, like new levels, will be dirt slow.

 

Should I just stick with Intel's RST and hope it works better on the Skylake platform, or see if a hybrid drive works better?

[chatter_box]

I would STRONGLY suggest not getting either of those as some games take up 60+gb, and 8gb or 32gb is barely enough for anything, let alone games. I suggest buying a 2TB drive for mass storage, a 240gb SSD for your OS, and finally, buy a cheap 120gb SSD and set it up as a cache for you 2TB HDD. Here's a guide on how to do so

 

GUIDE: http://www.overclock.net/t/1227655/how-to-set-up-intel-smart-response-technology-ssd-caching

I know this is for an older gen, but it should still be fundamentally the same.

 

 

[Aniallation]

I wouldn't imagine so. But then again a 7200rpm mechanical drive isn't that bad for games, even without an SSD cache. I wouldn't spend the extra to get a hybrid drive over a regular drive for mass storage, unless all you do is play one game and that game is less than 8GB in size. Even TF2 is like 14GB.

[chatter_box]

1 minute ago, Chatter_Box said:

I would STRONGLY suggest not getting either of those as some games take up 60+gb, and 8gb or 32gb is barely enough for anything, let alone games. I suggest buying a 2TB drive for mass storage, a 240gb SSD for your OS, and finally, buy a cheap 120gb SSD and set it up as a cache for you 2TB HDD. Here's a guide on how to do so

 

GUIDE: http://www.overclock.net/t/1227655/how-to-set-up-intel-smart-response-technology-ssd-caching

I know this is for an older gen, but it should still be fundamentally the same.

 

 

 

PS a 5400rpm drive is slow, so heres a great 2TB 7400RPM drive and 120gb ssd

https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-BarraCuda-3-5-Inch-Internal-ST2000DM006/dp/B01IEKG402/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1478826618&sr=1-1&keywords=2tb+hdd

https://www.amazon.com/ADATA-Premier-SP550-120GB-ASP550SS3-120GM-C/dp/B013J7PP96/ref=sr_1_7?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1478826648&sr=1-7&keywords=120gb+ssd

 

[Mira Yurizaki]

The problem with hybrid drives and caching is it only gets to those speeds if the program and data in question is frequently accessed. And at worst, if you're playing a game that loads huge amounts of assets, it may kick the stuff in cache out if the caching algorithm is simply FIFO or it may never really be cached if not used frequently enough if the algorithm is an MFU based one.

 

If you're just looking for a staging area for games, I would get a 120GB drive and manually move games back and forth.

[Gerr]

FYI...Intel's SSD Caching RST maxes out at 64GB, which is what I have been using.

 

And though many games might be 25GB+, that doesn't mean it needs all or even most of it at any given time.

 

But I agree with most in that 8GB just seems too small for a gaming cache.  Wish there was a 7200RPM hybrid drive with 64GB of NAND, that would be a seller!

[Captain_WD]

9 hours ago, Gerr said:

~snip~

Hi there

 

Generally gaming doesn't really rely on the storage's performance for anything but the loading times (generally FPS and graphics are not affected). Only in open world or MMO games you may see faster or smoother surrounding textures loads but that won't affect the overall FPS nor texture quality. You should be completely fine playing games off a WD Black drive without any FPS drops or graphics changes. 

 

If you'd like a drive that has both flash memory and platters you may take a look at WD Black2 as it has a 120GB SSD and 1TB HDD all in one 2.5" form factor. It may be quite useful in cases when you don't have space for separate HDDs and SSDs.  

 

Let me know if you have any questions! 

 

Captain_WD.